Against the backdrop of financial infractions allegedly perpetrated by Hadiza Bala-Usman, the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Monday, inaugurated an 11-man panel to investigate the activities of the agency from 2016 till date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On May 6, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the recommendations of Amaechi to set up an administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the management of the NPA under the stewardship of Hadiza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inaugurating the panel on Monday, the Minister charged the members to be diligent in order to do a thorough job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The committee\u2019s terms of reference, include examining and investigating the administrative policies and strategies adopted by NPA\u2019s Managing Director, Hadiza Usman, and confirm compliance with extant laws and rules from 2016 till date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others include \u201cexamine and investigate issues leading to the termination of other contracts of NPA and confirm compliance with the terms of the respective contracts, court ruling and presidential directives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExamine and investigate compliance with communication channels, as obtained in the public service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExamine and investigate the procurement of contracts from 2016 to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCome up with suggestions and advice that would strengthen the operations of NPA and forestall such occurrences in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd any other matter that may be necessary for the course of the assignment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his brief remarks, Amaechi noted that the decision to take a look at the books of the agency is in furtherance of the mandate of the ministry to oversee the activities of agencies and parastatals under its supervision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: \u201cThis is in the discharge of our responsibility as a ministry and I don\u2019t see why anybody is complaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat is wrong in looking at what is happening in NPA? I don\u2019t see what is wrong in that. As the Minister of Transportation for four years, I hardly know what is happening and I want to know now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe president agrees with me that it\u2019s my responsibility as minister to find out what is going on<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt worries me that people are saying we should not ask questions. Nobody has been indicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCan we know what is going on in NPA? That\u2019s the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf everything is right, why do we have to bother at the end of the day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you have completed your assignment, we will be glad to pass on the report to the President, but don\u2019t forget your assignment will include activities of procurement and its processes from 2016 till date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd that is why you do not have a time limit. So, it will take you some time. You are not auditing, but finding out the processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPlease be diligent, invite anybody you want to invite, including the minister, if there are infractions you need me to clarify,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Amaechi, NPA is an agency that manages maritime trading activities in Nigeria which is expected to generate huge resources for the government to run the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Against the backdrop of financial infractions allegedly perpetrated by Hadiza Bala-Usman, the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Monday, inaugurated an 11-man panel to investigate the activities of the agency from 2016 till date. On May 6, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the recommendations of Amaechi to set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-naija-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Amaechi-2-1.jpg?fit=600%2C464&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11811,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11810\/revisions\/11811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}